Hell Yeah, Friday Night!

Friday night in America - as I remember it and therefore we assume is fact - is a night for games. Entertainment in general, as some people prefer the non-combative plays and movies and concerts over competitive endeavors, but primarily games.

Every high school in America that has 11 healthy lads fields a football team and they take assault the turf to beat or be beaten by the opposing squad. Friday night is also a popular night for boxing matches, basketball games, and anything else competitive that can be done after a quick dinner and before a night hopping bars.

Friday night is celebratory. It's exercise and liberation and jubilation and competition and showboating and flirting and drinking and relaxation. It's an after-lunch game of hoops, an after-work game of darts, an after-dinner game of scrabble, an all-night wargamer session of Squad Leader or the Longest Day.

Online games have communities, and there are some people who vastly prefer to spend their Friday night online instead of on the town. Some guilds schedule their raids for Friday nights because they don't do things with friends IRL, at least they have no need to participate in the dating scene that usually accompanies these events, so they celebrate with a beer in cyberspace and relax with friends by raiding Icecrown.

So things can get a little messy on Friday nights in Warcraft. People can get a little emotional or odd and do things they wouldn't ordinarily do, unexplained and bizarre behavior. People who are mild-mannered might suddenly ninja something. A notorious skinflint might start handing out gold. Guilds can suddenly explode (this especially). Friday has some heightened expectations to it because, especially for the younger single folk, there is the feeling that if they weren't logged in then possibly there was something more significant waiting for them IRL they could have done that would lead them to find the person of the desirable sex that they could get addlepated with and wake up with on a confusing Saturday morning.

So if your raids fail on a Friday and your guild has a backlog of angst, you might be headed for a split. If your friends don't log on and you level/gear past them you might end up running with a different crowd. If there's no one on that you know at all and you're bored, you might end up rerolling completely to meet people and try something new.

But there's a hidden energy there, on Friday night. You want to win and earn an upgrade, a trophy, a title or mount, and ride slowly through Stormwind so everyone can see it.

And they'll say "Hey dude, very nice mount."

And you'll say "Yeah, pretty cool, ain't it?"

And maybe that cute elf in the corner will see you in your position of esteem and you can sneak over later and buy her an ale. It's Friday night, anything could happen.